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deepnair
PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2012 2:17 pm    Post subject: XI50 vs Broker Reply with quote

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Joined: 07 Feb 2012
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Hi - one question that keeps coming up in many discussions is - broker cannot perform at very high loads (the performance degrades) - so xi50 is required. Is this a true statement ? Please comment.

Thanks,
Deep Nair
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smdavies99
PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2012 2:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Location: Somewhere over the Rainbow this side of Never-never land.

This is a very subjective item.

How high is high performance?
How complex are your flows/transformatons?
What mix of protocols and external system access is required?
How much Hardware are you prepared to throw at the problem?

The answers t othe above questions will vary between sites and even between different applications on the same site.

Perhaps you can qualify by what you mean as High Performance?
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Vitor
PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2012 5:07 pm    Post subject: Re: XI50 vs Broker Reply with quote

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deepnair wrote:
Hi - one question that keeps coming up in many discussions is - broker cannot perform at very high loads (the performance degrades) - so xi50 is required.


Coming up in many discussions where? Between whom? 2 IBM technical architects at a conference? 2 drunken baseball fans in a bar?

Aside from the very accurate observations of my associate, how would an XI50 improve the performance where the message format is not XML? Or where the transport is WMQ/JMS?

deepnair wrote:
Is this a true statement ?


It depends. IMHO if you have a "poorly" performing WMB flow your first reaction should be to identify why & amend/scale as needed.
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lancelotlinc
PostPosted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 5:07 am    Post subject: Re: XI50 vs Broker Reply with quote

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Joined: 22 Mar 2010
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Location: Bloomington, IL USA

deepnair wrote:
Hi - one question that keeps coming up in many discussions is - broker cannot perform at very high loads (the performance degrades) - so xi50 is required. Is this a true statement ? Please comment.

Thanks,
Deep Nair


Your friend's discussions are very far off-base. WebSphere Message Broker on AIX has 120 times the horsepower of Xi50. Xi50 is not an Enterprise Service Bus. The two products perform different roles. Xi50 oeprates outside the secure zone and is an edge device used to validate traffic before it enters the secure zone. WMB operates inside the secure zone. WMB is an Apple, Xi50 is an Orange. You cannot compare the two because they answer to two different roles in the Enterprise. They do different things. And the common things they do, is done differently with different goals.

There are some performance reports you can look at. Use Google.

WMB performance is highly dependent on the developer writing good code. Before someone says WMB is not performing well, your first suspect should be that the WMB developer is not performing well.
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deepnair
PostPosted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 11:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Joined: 07 Feb 2012
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Its a frequent discussion that comes up in design sessions. For e.g. I have a requirement - XML Format A needs to be transformed to XML Format B, load is 30 transactions per second

In such a case, will broker (with esql/java) perform better or XI50 (stylesheet impl) perform better ?

Assume coding for WMB is done properly....

I know these two products have their own specific use cases, but when there is a common use case and you have both these products in your shop - which one should we prefer ?

What does IBM recommend ?

Thanks,
Deep Nair
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lancelotlinc
PostPosted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 11:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Joined: 22 Mar 2010
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Location: Bloomington, IL USA

deepnair wrote:
Its a frequent discussion that comes up in design sessions. For e.g. I have a requirement - XML Format A needs to be transformed to XML Format B, load is 30 transactions per second

In such a case, will broker (with esql/java) perform better or XI50 (stylesheet impl) perform better ?

Assume coding for WMB is done properly....

I know these two products have their own specific use cases, but when there is a common use case and you have both these products in your shop - which one should we prefer ?

What does IBM recommend ?

Thanks,
Deep Nair



In such a case, will broker (with esql/java) perform better or XI50 (stylesheet impl) perform better ?

Does an Apple taste better than an Orange? Or, does the Orange produce more vitamin C?

Your architect should make this decision, not the developers. Your architect will know that an Apple is not an Orange. If the architect wants the transformation to occur for security reasons, then the transformation should occur in the Xi50 on the edge, outside of your secure zone. If your architect sees that the traffic is from an internal source, then the Xi50 will not even be a candidate to do the transformation because the data is not transiting the edge.

The question is not which device performs better, the question is, where does the transformation need to take place: the edge or the secure zone.
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Vitor
PostPosted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 11:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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deepnair wrote:
Its a frequent discussion that comes up in design sessions. For e.g. I have a requirement - XML Format A needs to be transformed to XML Format B, load is 30 transactions per second


You can't say "design" and "requirement" in the same sentence. Whoever is doing the architecture should be dictating which of the 2 methods you use, that's not a design time decision.

Also in the example you quote (throughput of 30 TPS or better) the answer to "which should I use" remains "it depends". That's not a strong enough single requirement to make a decision.

deepnair wrote:
In such a case, will broker (with esql/java) perform better or XI50 (stylesheet impl) perform better ?


In the case of transforming XML at 30 TPS or faster, define "better". Is "better" 60 TPS or more, is "better" able to be modified in future by Java developer, is "better" transformed in a highly secure environment, etc, etc, etc.

You're looking for a simplistic answer to a complex question.

deepnair wrote:
What does IBM recommend ?


The best choice for your specific circumstance.
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lancelotlinc
PostPosted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 11:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Vitor wrote:
deepnair wrote:
Its a frequent discussion that comes up in design sessions. For e.g. I have a requirement - XML Format A needs to be transformed to XML Format B, load is 30 transactions per second


Also in the example you quote (throughput of 30 TPS or better) the answer to "which should I use" remains "it depends". That's not a strong enough single requirement to make a decision.

deepnair wrote:
In such a case, will broker (with esql/java) perform better or XI50 (stylesheet impl) perform better ?


In the case of transforming XML at 30 TPS or faster, define "better". Is "better" 60 TPS or more, is "better" able to be modified in future by Java developer, is "better" transformed in a highly secure environment, etc, etc, etc.

deepnair wrote:
What does IBM recommend ?


The best choice for your specific circumstance.


WMB 8 is capable of 15,000 TPS. WMB 8 on POWER7 gets ten percent more throughput.

mqjeff wrote:
System z IPLA: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24032579
Windows IP77: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24032582
System x IPL9: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24032580
AIX IP6P: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24032578
z/OS IP18: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24032581

Main performance supportpac index: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27007150

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Vitor
PostPosted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 1:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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lancelotlinc wrote:

WMB 8 is capable of 15,000 TPS. WMB 8 on POWER7 gets ten percent more throughput.

mqjeff wrote:
System z IPLA: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24032579
Windows IP77: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24032582
System x IPL9: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24032580
AIX IP6P: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24032578
z/OS IP18: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24032581

Main performance supportpac index: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27007150


Hence my request for a definition of "better", and my comment that a requirement for only 30 TPS wouldn't push you one way or another.
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PeterPotkay
PostPosted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 2:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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lancelotlinc wrote:

In such a case, will broker (with esql/java) perform better or XI50 (stylesheet impl) perform better ?

Does an Apple taste better than an Orange? Or, does the Orange produce more vitamin C?


Which weighs more, this apple or this orange?
Which has a bigger circumference, this apple or this orange?
You can compare apples to oranges when you have to compare an apple to an orange.

He is probably really asking, given optimal code, which platform can transform more transactions per second - WTX or WMB? Given that WMB can run on such a wide variety of hardware, the answer shouldn't be 'Harumph, harumph, you can't compare the two. End of story." Why not find out the specs of the WMB system and try to see which one can do more TPS? Maybe (not likely) all other things are equal, WMB and WTX are available wherever the transformation needs to happen, and its a legit question.


Vitor wrote:

deepnair wrote:
Its a frequent discussion that comes up in design sessions. For e.g. I have a requirement - XML Format A needs to be transformed to XML Format B, load is 30 transactions per second


You can't say "design" and "requirement" in the same sentence. Whoever is doing the architecture should be dictating which of the 2 methods you use, that's not a design time decision.

You just did, he didn't! But of course its a design time decision. First you get your requirements in order, and then during the initial design discussions WTX versus WMB is batted around, assuming all things are equal. Odds are that not all things are equal, and some things may make the decision for you, regardless of your TPS requirements.

Because coders will be of varying skills in a company, any individual company will be hard pressed to say they had the best code deployed to both WTX and WMB when doing a comparison. This is documentation (DeveloperWorks Article, Red Paper) that I always thought IBM was lacking in (maybe I never found it but its there?) - Because there is some overlap between WMB and DP, compare the two for us please and thank you.
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mqjeff
PostPosted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 3:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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It's not as straight forward as "which will run more copies of the same transformation".

WTX and WMB can run in lots of places, not all of them the same. WTX generally runs in more places than broker, because WTX runs inside of broker as well as outside.

EDIT: This is not remotely justification for purchasing an extra piece of software - WTX. You should only buy WTX if you can justify the cost on top of the existing software licenses you already have with more than one transformation and more than "we *might* move transformations around"

You might, therefore, find that you can run more copies of the same WTX transformation in one place versus the other.

But that doesn't mean you should run a transformation that requires data from internal systems on a DP box that sits in your DMZ.
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rekarm01
PostPosted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 11:22 pm    Post subject: Re: XI50 vs Broker Reply with quote

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lancelotlinc wrote:
WebSphere Message Broker on AIX has 120 times the horsepower of Xi50 ... WMB 8 is capable of 15,000 TPS.

Without knowing anything at all about the amount of hardware that OP is using (even if it's running AIX), or the nature of the transactions, these numbers aren't entirely meaningful.

lancelotlinc wrote:
Xi50 is not an Enterprise Service Bus. ... Xi50 operates outside the secure zone and is an edge device used to validate traffic before it enters the secure zone.

The xi50 (Integration Appliance) is an ESB. It generally operates inside the secure zone; the xs40 (XML Security Gateway) is better suited for the DMZ.

deepnair wrote:
Its a frequent discussion that comes up in design sessions. For e.g. I have a requirement - XML Format A needs to be transformed to XML Format B, load is 30 transactions per second. In such a case, will broker (with esql/java) perform better or XI50 (stylesheet impl) perform better ? ... when there is a common use case and you have both these products in your shop - which one should we prefer ?

30 tps involving a simple XML to XML transformation does not seem like a very high load for either DataPower or WMB. Performance may not be the deciding factor here, though there may be other site-specific considerations that would make one platform a better fit than the other. The local IBM rep may also be helpful here. If both products are already in shop, then it shouldn't be that difficult to create a test case for each, to see how well they perform.

PeterPotkay wrote:
He is probably really asking, given optimal code, which platform can transform more transactions per second - WTX or WMB?

Almost. The question concerned DataPower versus WMB - not WTX versus WMB.
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mqjeff
PostPosted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 2:11 am    Post subject: Re: XI50 vs Broker Reply with quote

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rekarm01 wrote:
The xi50 (Integration Appliance) is an ESB. It generally operates inside the secure zone; the xs40 (XML Security Gateway) is better suited for the DMZ.

ESB is a software pattern, it's not an implementation of the pattern.

The xi50 is an appliance that can be used to implement an ESB, in the same way that Broker is software that can be used to implement an ESB.

The existence of either Broker or the xi50 in a given IT infrastructure does not imply in any way that either one is hosting an ESB, or that an ESB exists in the architecture implemented on that infrastructure.

The existence of both Broker and the xi50 in a given IT infrastructure implies a compelling reason for purchasing both - i.e. that one meets a need that can't be filled by the other, or that one represents a strategic direction over the other. This would then provide guidance for how to choose the host for a particular integration.

Most people that own two automobiles do so because they have two people that need to be in two places at the same time. Some people own two automobiles because they can. "Because they can" is a terrible reason to buy two enterprise products that perform the same function.

rekarm01 wrote:
Almost. The question concerned DataPower versus WMB - not WTX versus WMB.

DataPower is a brand that covers a variety of appliances with a variety of functional levels and potential use cases. WMB is a piece of software that comes in a much less varied set of capabilities. It seems reasonable to attempt to make the comparison against the pieces of DataPower that provide the same functionality as WMB - which is mostly WTX.
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Vitor
PostPosted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 4:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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PeterPotkay wrote:
First you get your requirements in order, and then during the initial design discussions WTX versus WMB is batted around, assuming all things are equal. Odds are that not all things are equal, and some things may make the decision for you, regardless of your TPS requirements.


Exactly my point. The requirements go through the architects, who are the owners of the not-equal playing field. They will bat round DataPower, WTX & WMB in the various combinations these can be assembled & a decision taken. By the time you get to design, the choice is made.

PeterPotkay wrote:
Because coders will be of varying skills in a company, any individual company will be hard pressed to say they had the best code deployed to both WTX and WMB when doing a comparison.


And is another thing which might not be equal on a given site.
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deepnair
PostPosted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 12:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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The things thats happening in our env is that - almost all services are getting pushed to XI50 i.e. only when in XI50 + Stylesheet - the transformations get difficult or hard to implement (example special characters), broker is being used.

Also if we go with broker then within borker only dynamic java invocation is being used.

With XI50 so far, we havent seen any performance impacts, so all in all - the management is happy, but as architects - our question is then why we need to keep broker in the shop ? Is that just to support java implementations on broker ?

People always cite - implementation hassles with broker for ex to implement in XI50 - we just need stylesheets and policy files but in broker - a build + deployment is required....

Along with this - the broker on z/OS consumes more CPU - so the cost per CPU cycle is very high on z/OS.

All these are leading management deciding on moving off broker to XI50 completely + a WAS based support for java.

Thanks,
Deep Nair
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